1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to data processing systems and data networks and in particular virtual machine migration between data processing systems across data networks.
2. Description of the Related Art
Live virtual machine migration (also referred to as live guest migration) is a process by which operations executing within a server are transferred to another server. A virtual machine is a virtual sharing/partitioning of a computer's resources including processor(s), memory, storage and Input/Output (I/O) functionality. Copying memory of a guest/virtual machine (for live guest migration) from one server to another is typically slow and requires a large amount of overhead. Current methods for performing virtual machine migration employ Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) to transfer data. Because of the complexity of the TCP/IP protocol, the transfer process generally places a significant load on the central processor unit (CPU). Since the server must dedicate CPU cycles to the transfer, the guest's performance may be adversely impacted.